Context

• There has been a recent online debate between a hepatologist and an Indian chess Grand Master regarding whether practitioners of traditional medicine can call themselves doctors.
• It has reignited a longstanding and multifaceted discourse on the status, legal boundaries, and societal role of practitioners of India’s traditional medical systems, particularly Ayurveda and Unani.
• The controversy goes well beyond titles, touching the very core of public health, legislative policy, and cultural identity in modern India.

Historical Framing: Committees and Government Policy

• The genesis of this debate can be traced back nearly 80 years.
• The Bhore Committee in 1946 advocated firmly for modern, evidence-based medicine, citing global trends where countries were moving away from traditional medical practices in favour of scientific medicine.
• Nevertheless, this stance met significant resistance among traditional medicine practitioners, who framed the issue in terms of cultural identity, arguing for the preservation of systems such as Ayurveda on the grounds of their ancient Indian roots.
• In response to public outcry, the government established the Committee on Indigenous Systems of Medicine, whose 1948 report wrapped the legitimacy of traditional medicine in a narrative of Hindu nationalism.
• While India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru refrained from granting official recognition to these systems, the political tide shifted under Indira Gandhi in 1970.
• The creation of the Indian Medicine Central Council Act, formally recognised and regulated practitioners of Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani.
• This legislative framework was updated in 2020 by the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act.

Divergent Philosophies and the Challenge of Integrative Medicine

• A crucial point of contention is the fundamental incompatibility between the underlying philosophies of traditional and modern medicine.
• The curriculum for Ayurvedic practitioners merges ancient concepts like doshas, prakriti, and metaphysical ideas about the soul with select subjects from modern biomedicine, such as anatomy and cell physiology.
• These frameworks are inherently irreconcilable: Ayurveda attributes illness to imbalances of doshas, while modern medicine explains diseases such as infections through germ theory and pathophysiology.
• This makes the concept of integrative medicine, a blending of the two approaches, highly problematic at a conceptual and scientific level.

Legal Scope and the Right to Prescribe

• Rule 2(ee) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945
  • It allows State governments to declare certain practitioners eligible to prescribe modern medicine, even if they are not MBBS graduates.
  • Many states have used this provision to empower traditional medicine practitioners, resulting in friction with the allopathic community and periodic judicial challenge.
• Mukhtiar Chand vs The State of Punjab
  • The Supreme Court, in the case of  Mukhtiar Chand vs The State of Punjab & Ors(1998), clarified that the right to prescribe a system’s drugs is inseparable from the claim to practice that system, effectively barring Ayurvedic practitioners from dispensing allopathic medicines.
  • Despite this, state governments have continued issuing orders under Rule 2(ee), occasionally in defiance of judicial rulings, leading to repeated litigation, spearheaded by bodies like the Indian Medical Association.
  • At the same time, patients themselves often sue for being misled about the practitioners’ qualifications, especially where the prescription or treatment involved modern medications.

Procedural Boundaries and Recent Developments

• The boundaries extend beyond writing prescriptions to procedural rights.
• Notably, a 2020 government notification permitted post-graduate Ayurvedic doctors to perform 58 types of surgeries, including operations like gallbladder or appendix removal.
• This policy is currently under judicial scrutiny. If upheld, it opens unresolved questions, can Ayurvedic practitioners then also use modern anaesthesia and antibiotics for such surgeries?
• The tension is heightened by the fact that, to cut costs, many hospitals reportedly staff Ayurvedic graduates in positions traditionally held by MBBS doctors.

Conclusion

• At its core, this controversy is not simply about professional titles, but about the standard of care delivered to the public and the integrity of India’s health system.
• The blurred boundaries, inconsistent legal interpretations, and political appropriations risk undermining evidence-based medicine and patient trust, diverting taxpayer resources into avenues with questionable benefits for public health.
• As debates ranging from social media to the Supreme Court play out, the most important consideration remains the safety, well-being, and informed consent of Indian citizens, issues that transcend the headlines and demand ongoing scrutiny.